The RunnersUp
by Amanda Lord
Summary: What happens when you die a hero? It isn't as fun as you think. Two new higher beings discuss Xander, Harmony, hair care, and the matter of soul mates, as they fight off the boredom.


Title: The Runners-Up  
  
Author: Amanda Lord  
  
Rating: PG-13 I guess, probably less, my problem is always language language language  
  
Spoilers: Lets just say anything is fair game. It would help to be pretty familiar with Season One on Buffy.  
  
Summary: Two new higher beings discuss Xander, Harmony, hair care, and the matter of soul mates.  
  
A/N: I don't care. I liked Cordelia. I will miss her. The folly of falling for Angel is to be no more with the show. The folly of falling in love with any one in the Jossverse is overriding agony and once someone falls in love it is due time before something happens to this love. No one is allowed to be happy...witness the soul thing. Cautionary tale, plot device, or just the way the world works...you decide.  
  
Oh yeah...  
  
Disclaimer: I am much less angsty and a hell of a lot more of a romantic than the writers of Buffy and Angel...however I am always the loyal fan.  
  
Now for my version of what happens to Cordelia and Spike......  
  
****  
  
I had tried to stop watching him when the thing that looked like me started being all evil. Oh he loved me and I was sleeping with Connor?  
  
Gross.  
  
For the record I never returned. They used my body as a host while my spirit remained in this plane of existence.  
  
For those slow, I never boned Angel's son.  
  
The thought is repulsive, I changed his diapers.  
  
I remained in this nothingness of whiteness where all I could do was watch Angel, and occasionally I could tune into TV shows, but as soon as he needed me all I could see was him. I couldn't do anything. I just was forced to watch him. You'd think being a higher being would be more interesting.  
  
So of course I was sooo bored. There was nothing to do. Always so bored.  
  
Days of quiet. Here I was thinking that there was nothing more boring than the quiet town of Sunnydale, well the Sunnydale I knew before vampires, Slayers, and apocalypses. Oh I was so wrong. There is something worse than boredom.  
  
Absolutely nothing to do.  
  
I spend great time contemplating if this is really hell.  
  
Do you understand what nothing is?  
  
No diversion no leaning no body no color no smell no stretching no food no need for anything.  
  
No fun, let me tell you.  
  
So I'm doing nothing and all those spas that offer nothing and yoga should be put out of business. Doing nothing is the worst thing in the entire world. I would pay to be back in high school. At least in the classroom there would be more than nothing, but here I am. Nothing. I'm going to scream, but my voice sounds like nothing.  
  
Nothing, nothing nothing.  
  
I'm partially insane and lonely and mad about the way that I am treated as a higher being.  
  
Then he shows up, he's wearing all black in my world of white clouds. He's there for about two seconds when he lights a cigarette.  
  
I don't know where he got a cigarette. I didn't even have clothes a second ago.  
  
I look down and I'm wearing white. At least I am wearing clothes. There was nothing that I can imagine worse than being naked in front of him. Okay I don't mean to obsess, but please the Connor thing, definitely worse. I try to forget about that though.  
  
Then I get really frustrated because he's looking around smoking that damned cigarette.  
  
Hello, I've been alone forever and then he comes and he ignores me.  
  
I really get mad that he is smoking. I hate the cigarette.  
  
We are way beyond the realm of lung cancer. I can't complain of smell, because nothing smells here.  
  
But he will not smoke in my completely white higher room.  
  
I shoot the cigarette away with the light that I am happy to find that I still have.  
  
He looks at me in shock. Then he raises the hand that just lost the cigarette. He holds his palm up.  
  
And I find myself flat on my back. He comes into my field of view with that horrible smirk.  
  
"Look who is no longer the only higher being in the realm."  
  
***  
  
If you think that I ended up in heaven after saving the world you're wrong. I ended up in this white poofy room where there is this cheerleader/higher being. It seems that the two of us get to spend some serious quality time.  
  
In addition to that lovely fact we have the most painful job that anyone can imagine. No Romanesque harem room in my ever after. No we get Chinese water torture instead.  
  
We get to watch over them.  
  
We're the bloody guardian angels of the people we loved while on earth, yet hey they love each other and one day after lots of longing and soulful glances we'll probably get to see them together.  
  
Lovin' this whole reward system here.  
  
Save the world, save the girls, be a bloody champion and hey, we'll kick you in the arse and give you a job that they would think too severe in hell.  
  
Who decided that I was supposed to watch her. Watch her move and watch her smile and know that I can never touch her. I think I've done this before, then it was called stalking. Now it is called duty. New name same old misery. I really don't want to do this any more. I have to watch and I can't be there when she's scared or when she's in the need for a fight, I'm here. I have to watch her stumble and I can't be there.  
  
Nails on a bloody chalk board.  
  
To be honest it is good to see her smile, but it is breaking my bleedin' heart, which still doesn't beat, and tearing at the sensitive soul that I got for her. Because I did something really good, I was a champion and I am rewarded by always watching her and never seeing her.  
  
I suppose that it is good that she is alive and I should be grateful that she gets to grow and be happy, but I gave my life for the world, how altruistic can one be.  
  
I've changed, but Saint Spike is a long shot.  
  
The Cheerleader and I argue always, but the one thing that we agree on was that we were given a bum rap. She can't watch the Poof any more than I can watch my Slayer.  
  
On a good note the telly is pretty nice. It is a basic flat screen. We don't have any walls, so it just sits there on air. We can change the channels of sorts and watch any channel that exists. The cheerleader decided she could learn Russian by watching MTV in Russian. She's insane and boy bands were created to bring about the apocalypse. Never say that you stop learning once you ascend.  
  
We can look into the past. Wanna know who killed Kennedy, we know. Are there such things as aliens and Roswell? I know.  
  
But the bloody novelty wears off.  
  
It gets boring though and then we are stuck with nothing to do but watch over them.  
  
But our job is to watch out and help them and give them moral support. So we can watch anything we choose to, but once our attention falters it goes back to them.  
  
But that isn't all, it is not like we can completely ignore them, that would be too much fun. We're always on call.  
  
When they're really in trouble or needing a little guidance they pop up on the screen. Bleedin' break into whatever we're watching.  
  
The Poofy One always seems to have problems during Passions. Very strange for a creature with daylight issues, but he's part of the working world now.  
  
Then we have to use mojo and talk them through it and make sure that there aren't any banana peels in their paths.  
  
It really is a stupid job.  
  
And I'll miss Passions just because he has to brood that he was once-gasp--- evil.  
  
And that is something that we don't get, not just his brooding thing. We don't get all the rules in this place. We can watch the lives of anyone we know, we can see any point in their past, but we only get the shows on the telly that are currently on. If we miss them then we can't go back. Even on higher planes things make no sense. Thank god for re-runs.  
  
Creating some kind of diversion is kind of difficult. We've figured out how to get furniture to lounge on. Cheerleader figured out how to get the latest Cosmo. She was actually quiet. She actually stopped complaining for a few hours.  
  
We haven't been able to do much more than that. Seems that besides the telly and her mags, we have managed to get two games. We have Mancala, which I had to explain to her. 'Course higher beings play Mancala.  
  
Mancala didn't last to long as a diversion however. We don't play anymore, she cheats. She cheats more than I ever did. I might have occasionally done some things with kittens that I shouldn't have, but even before the soul I never cheated as much as she did. She seemed to believe that if she couldn't win, she would cheat. I refuse to play with her.  
  
The other game we've been able to call up is Twister. After she explained the rules to me I decided that there was no way you were going to get me sprawled out on the white plastic mat with the little circles on it.  
  
No.  
  
Fricken.  
  
Bloody.  
  
Chance.  
  
In.  
  
Hell.  
  
Which I probably already am in. this can't be heaven.  
  
We whine. But there are no diversions.  
  
So most of our time is spent on the couch when we're not ready to kill each other or on those recline-y chair when we're not doing well. She always sits with a big bowl of popcorn or little round candies. I sit here with my cigs and we talk at the telly. It started out that we just would talk to them seeing as it makes a difference, they seem to be able to feel us and are stronger when we are behind them. Our madness however is spreading, we've begun to yell at shows, as if we have any control over that. I mean we can almost think that we can control those so-called reality things that she likes so much, but when I catch myself bitchin' at re-runs of Friends then I know that I've gone around the bloody bend.  
  
And I just admitted that I watch the bloody Friends show.  
  
I'm smoking another cig and she's munching on those little candies and we're watching the Slayer. She's in England and she's having a rough go of it. She's not giving up, but she'll still cry at night.  
  
It hurts a lot so I have found a diversion.  
  
Xander bashing has become my favorite hobby, due to the lack of anything else to do. The Whelp is always there. It is so obnoxious. My mocking of the great heroic carpenter pisses the Cheerleader off to no end. That makes the world okay once again. I've turned it into the game, seeing how many times I could piss her off before she would retaliate.  
  
"Why does he get to be there? He's a bleedin wanker and he is the weakest one, yet he stands there with one eye and he gets to be with her," I'm mumbling on and on. She's pretending not to hear me, but I can see her getting angry.  
  
She turns on me with those fiery eyes.  
  
"What is wrong with you, can't you just leave him alone."  
  
I look at her and I light another cigarette. I decide to go for the personal route.  
  
"I remember locking him and Red up once. Heard that went really well."  
  
I say it all innocent like, as if I didn't know that my return to Sunnydale ended her relationship with the Scooby gang forever.  
  
She looks at me and purses her lips. She's remembering, she's remembering that she saw him kissing someone else. Now I have two courses of action. I can either remind her of the fact that she was socially ostracized for being with him, or I could dig deeper about the fact that it was his best friend and it probably had been going on for a while.  
  
But the silly chit doesn't want to play though. She just looks at me and the calm surrounds her.  
  
She was beginning to win this.  
  
"He's a good guy. He deserves to be near her."  
  
I look at her and shake my head. We both know that this is not true.  
  
I hold up my hand and look at the television. I could just do this by thinking about it with out all the fluffy hand motions, but I am doing for the dramatic effect.  
  
I motion towards the television and I announce, "Show me something completely selfish and wrong and maybe evil that Xander has done and never regretted."  
  
She's looking at the screen and I pray that this works, because I've never done anything like this before. I really don't think that this is going to work, and that I would look foolish, but hey I have no alternative.  
  
But it does. Flickering on the screen is a bit of Red doing some of her mojo, she's in a hospital and she is going to re-ensoul my poofy Sire. Then it flashes to the Whelp blatantly lying to the Slayer.  
  
I blink. I did not know this story. I did not know that he had been such as ass and called for the death of Angel.  
  
The screen showed Buffy fighting as if she had no other choice, it showed Buffy leaving her home.  
  
Now the Whelp didn't change things all that much. I can't see how his little lie altered anything, but I also was floored. He lied and he lied quite a bit to his friend.  
  
Cordelia's mouth formed a little o.  
  
I was on a roll and once again the game was falling over to my side, we take the points where we can find them. I think I would win this round after all.  
  
I held up my hand in all my gloating glory.  
  
"Show me something else horribly wrong that he did."  
  
Then I was completely floored.  
  
I watched as Alexander Levalle Harris approached Buffy in a very preditory manner. This wasn't the sweet little Xander that I had known...  
  
I didn't believe my eyes.  
  
I was standing in front of the screen watching him act like he had never acted before.  
  
I was watching him attempt to...  
  
"Again," I said as Buffy knocked him out.  
  
I watched the scene again.  
  
Cordelia came up to me.  
  
"Oh that was the time he was a hyena."  
  
"What are you blathering about," I yelled, startling her.  
  
"Xander was a Hyena, something about a zoo. Willow told me."  
  
I turned at her. She was stuck with me and she was going to listen to this.  
  
"He was trying.he did the exact thing that I did. HE DID THE SAME THING."  
  
She looks at me, laughing.  
  
I'm pissed off as hell and she stands there laughing. The furniture had disappeared, as does anything that we aren't paying attention to. However it was a good thing because I would have ripped it to shreds. I was approaching her, I knew that we couldn't touch each other and I would pass right through her, but it didn't seem to matter at the moment.  
  
I lunged.  
  
She is looking at me as I land on the floor and she is laughing.  
  
"What," I demand.  
  
"You're jealous of Xander Harris."  
  
I shake my head. I really can't be angry any more at something as asinine as that.  
  
Stupid bint.  
  
I don't say anything and she starts laughing again.  
  
"I guess that brooding runs in the family."  
  
She is going to die, oh yes she is going to die.  
  
We're already dead, but she is going to last much longer. I am going to figure out how to ruin her existence. I have nothing else to do. I have forever to figure out how to make her not exist.  
  
I hate her.  
  
Then she gets that look on her face. The cheerleader goes away and she is thinking of something, it is almost like longing.  
  
Usually this is the look that goes along with the Poof. She thinks about him and when she's not pissed or sad she gets this little half smile.  
  
But she wasn't thinking about the poof, I'm sure of that.  
  
"He bought me my prom dress. Did you know that," she says but she's not talking to me, "He bought me this dress that he couldn't afford. I've never had anyone in my life buy me something for a reason like that. I date rich guys who are trying to get into my pants. My father bought me things instead of acknowledging that I was alive. But Xander Harris was different. He had no money and he never expected to get anything out of it. He knew that he initially had no chance with me. When he bought me the dress, he didn't have to. He just did it because he wanted to. He had absolutely no reason."  
  
She looks up at the screen that is now showing Xander trying to ride the tube.  
  
She smiles that pure smile of a first crush.  
  
I am nauseated.  
  
***  
  
I'm reading Cosmo, or sleeping. As a higher being sleep is not something that I have to do, but hey I'm bored. Sleep is something to pass the interminable amount of time that Buffy is training and whining. It seems like she does nothing else these days, she is a little higher on the whining thing.  
  
I'm half awake when I hear him. He's about an inch away from the screen watching Buffy. I hear him critiquing her before the words actually make sense.  
  
"You're dropping your shoulder."  
  
I peek at him, and he is not paying attention to me.  
  
"There is one behind you."  
  
He's like a four year old with a controller on a video game. It makes no real difference to the game, but he is acting out a parody of the game.  
  
"Bleedin hell woman quit playing and kill them."  
  
Then something happens that hasn't happened in the months we've been here.  
  
We've gotten little glimpses of the fact that they can feel us. Buffy changes clothes when I yell at her. Angel sometimes just gets really testy when Spike sits there for hours harassing him. They can feel us.  
  
But they've never recognized the fact that it was us.  
  
Until now.  
  
Buffy looks straight into Spike's eyes and yells, "You think you can do better, get your ass out of heaven and show me."  
  
Buffy stakes the last vampire and keeps looking. I know that she is just looking at the stars, but she's looking at him and he's not moving and strangely enough not talking.  
  
"I miss you," she twirls around and he reaches out and touches her face, his hands slide through the screen, but he touches her nonetheless, "I miss you every day. I miss you most when I'm doing this. I'm not used to doing it alone anymore."  
  
She's crying and his hand is going through the screen, but I realize that he is touching her. She puts her hand to where he is touching her.  
  
"Why?" she says through her tears, "I have to do this alone."  
  
He whispered to her and I didn't know what he said at the time.  
  
At the time she smiled and looked at him. Her hand caressed her cheek where he touched her.  
  
"I know," she whispered smiling.  
  
They stayed like that for awhile.  
  
Later I snuck and saw what he said. I got the television to play back the moment.  
  
He told her that she would never be alone.  
  
It was sweet and so silly.  
  
It got me to thinking though.  
  
He was drunk again and sleeping, or without the polite speak, he was passed out.  
  
I snuck to the television and I watched Angel. He was sitting in the sunlight of his new office. I had to know. Spike had been a partner and then a lover and then a friend for her. I had to make sure that the bond that allowed Buffy to hear him, was no more than what I had with Angel.  
  
He was in that icky office where he had the protected light.  
  
He stared at the daylight.  
  
"Angel," I said sweetly, "Angel can you hear me."  
  
Angel did move. He was in the midst of a major brood.  
  
I attempted to cajole him with sweet words.  
  
That wasn't working. So I tried the direct approach.  
  
"If you can hear me touch your nose."  
  
He didn't move.  
  
"You stupid brooding vampire, you're thinking of Connor aren't you. You are sitting there and you are thinking of him and if you did the right thing. You're a moron."  
  
Suddenly he put his hands behind his head and leaned back in the sunlight.  
  
"What is that, you did everything you could for that boy. You're blaming yourself because he got kidnapped to a hell dimension. You're not super vamp. You have made plenty of mistakes in life, including your tendency to sleep with the completely wrong blondes, but you have done nothing wrong for him. You did everything you could for that boy, even though he put you in the bottom of the ocean and slept with someone who looked like someone you loved, is it love or loved? What do you think of me? What do you feel about me? It isn't fair, I was by your side for years and I never got the chance to hear it, well there was that one time that you told that bimbo in my body, but."  
  
"I love you Cordy," Angel said with a smile as he stared up into the sun, "I go and visit your body, but the only time I really feel you is in the sun."  
  
He leaned back and he started to do this happy brood. He sat in the sun and I watched him.  
  
I didn't want to speak. I had babbled and suddenly nothing mattered. I watched him as he sat in the sun. I blocked the sun from clouds, I let him sit as long as possible in the sun because he knew it was me.  
  
***  
  
We were watching my grandsire get ready for his night, really I promise there was nothing else on. The cheerleader was laying upside down and her brown hair was long again. She was eating popcorn upside down and I was praying that she would choke on the kernel. It wouldn't kill her in this place, but it would be mighty uncomfortable.  
  
"Do all vampires have hair gel?"  
  
She asks me the question and I don't really get angry anymore. I'm used to her now.  
  
"Yes Cor-de-l-i-a," I make her name twelve syllables, I don't think that I've ever used her name before and we've been here close to a year, "When you are turned you wake up with blood lust and an urgent desire for hair care products."  
  
"I thought so," Cordelia said and flicked her hand, over the screen flicked over a great montage. It was the hairstyles of me. It began with the horrible wild mass before I was turned. The hair went through many many lengths and colors. I was quite impressed with my diversity.  
  
"I would like to point out that there were many times that I did not have gel."  
  
She flicked her hand and she found my least favorite. The period of Bourbon Street. I had straight black hair and a goatee. My hair was un-gelled, and also it hasn't seen soap in a very long time.  
  
"Like here?" she said raising her eyebrows towards the floor. Her voice was of disbelief of my unkempt state, good thing that she didn't go to me in the sixties. That was far worse, although I must say the goatee makes me a bit queasy.  
  
She flicked her hand again.  
  
She had settled on one of the poofy stages.  
  
I had enough of the mocking of my hair.  
  
"Well how about this."  
  
I had found a bad perm period. That was fabulous. The May Queen looked like a poodle.  
  
She squealed and began to hit me with a pillow.  
  
"Never again," she threatened.  
  
"How does he do that," she said looking at the screen where Angel was still doing his hair, "Isn't it done yet."  
  
I had to look at her and just not say anything snippy.  
  
"This is just proof that just because we are higher beings we don't know everything."  
  
***  
  
I'm in a really silly mood.  
  
He's really not happy with me on an epic scale.  
  
And so I act up, I am a higher being and I can act as if I am four if I want to.  
  
And I want to watch The Boy in the Bubble.  
  
He hates that movie. I hate it too, but I want to piss him off.  
  
I am not really paying attention to the movie. I'm playing wit my Twizzlers.  
  
"Do you think we can influence John Travolta not to take every role he is given. Yeah he makes some good movies and makes a come back, but good lord he makes some stinky films."  
  
"You stupid cow, you are worse than Harmony."  
  
I stop. I forgot that he had dated her.  
  
We have something in common.  
  
I ponder this for a little bit.  
  
"She's pretty vapid isn't she," I finally say.  
  
He takes a deep breath and sighs, "Dear God yes."  
  
I gnaw on my Twizzler.  
  
"Why did you date her?"  
  
He turns and gives me that lascivious look, "I was evil and Harm was very into what I was offering."  
  
I would smack him if we were actually corporal.  
  
"You're a pig."  
  
He did that smirk that makes his cheekbones all the more prominent.  
  
"Hey the girl is pure kink. She was fine as long as she wasn't talking, I found great ways to make her shut up."  
  
I rolled my eyes.  
  
"Did you care about her," I had to know.  
  
"May Queen, I was just off of a one-hundred year relationship, I wasn't really looking for love."  
  
I don't know why I got indignant.  
  
"Just because you were all grrr and you were the Big Bad and you were dumped does not mean that you have an excuse for using my friend."  
  
Spike really tried to keep a straight face, but he burst out laughing.  
  
""You don't like her any more than I do."  
  
I shrugged. The girl was a pain and had tried to eat me, but she was my friend. So I looked him straight in the eye.  
  
"She's my friend. There will be no more bashing of Harmony on this plane of existence."  
  
"As long as I still can bash the Whelp," he mutters.  
  
I ignore that.  
  
We pick our battles here.  
  
**** "I still don't get it," she says.  
  
She doesn't get a lot, but I choose not to say it. We're getting along somewhat, no need to ruin it.  
  
She's buried in the soft couch with blankets.  
  
I smoke my cig and shrug.  
  
"I don't really know," I admit, "It was a bit before my time."  
  
We've been watching the Egyptians make the great pyramids for a few days now, but I think that we're missing something. Besides the immense amount of slaves there is nothing out of place. No magicks, no nothing just men with blocks.  
  
"There's got to be some kind of something," She says and we watch some more.  
  
We were just so used to bloody weirdness that normalcy was strange.  
  
She looked at her nails and groaned.  
  
"I so need a manicure."  
  
And suddenly there is a table in front of her with all kinds of gadgets and bottles of polish.  
  
Her eyes grow wide and suddenly its Christmas and her Birthday.  
  
She's giddy.  
  
I lean back and watch them build more pyramids.  
  
"Spike catch," she says.  
  
I look up to see a bottle flying my way. I catch it, vampire reflexes still in check.  
  
It's a bottle of black nail polish.  
  
I look at her.  
  
She just grins.  
  
Bird is getting to know me far too well.  
  
***  
  
I wake up again and Spike is playing Western man. Angel is trying to move boxes and Spike was standing in front of the television shooting.  
  
"Vampire off," he shoots just as Angel chooses to pick up the box.  
  
Angel suddenly has a lot of trouble picking up the box.  
  
Spike giggles, yes girls of the world he giggles. The great now higher being of Spike giggles  
  
Angel goes to the window and tentatively sticks his hand into the shaft of light.  
  
"Vampire on," Spike said twirling his duds.  
  
Angel's hands suddenly burst into flames.  
  
Spike snickered.  
  
It was a funny game.  
  
"What are you doing?" I asked him.  
  
He tried to look innocent, but just ended up looking really really guilty.  
  
"Nothing," he said hiding his hands behind his back.  
  
I gave him the look. The look worked really well with Angel and Wesley, and it worked amazingly well with Spike.  
  
"I was making Angel human," he answered.  
  
My eyes grew really wide.  
  
I was stunned for a second. Then came the overriding jealousy again. Spike gets all the good jobs. I get all the crap. I was here first and I loved Angel, but Spike, William the Big Bad Second Souled Leather Wearing Can't Get Out Of The Eighties Bloody, gets all of the fun jobs.  
  
I can't make Angel human, but he can.  
  
That is when I see the panic rise in his eyes.  
  
"No."  
  
And that is when I realize that these years together have given me quite a bit of power. I now can understand him without him verbal interatction. I understand what he doesn't want. More than anything he doesn't want Angel to be human. We have sucky jobs, but making him the crux of Angel's shanshu is just not fair.  
  
"Vampire, on." He says and turns back to the screen.  
  
"No no no."  
  
He says as Angel vamps out.  
  
He turns towards me.  
  
"No. Angel is not going to be human."  
  
And he doesn't finish the sentence because we both know what will happen the moment that Angel becomes human.  
  
So I let it drop, because the last thing that either one of us wants is Angel and Buffy, the human saga. She is released from her Slayerness, because there are so many Slayers and he is human. No curse, no prophesies. Oh happy day.  
  
And about a year and a half after he gave his life for the world to defeat the First Evil, he begins to brood.  
  
***  
  
I do not brood.  
  
I just have stopped talking. She's bored so she says that I'm brooding, but I'm just not that talkative.  
  
So since I don't want to talk she has taken control of the television. We're watching some show with fifty women and eveningwear and some un-sexy bathing suits. They're pretty and vapid. I'm watching with half a mind.  
  
As always what is going through my head is the constant reminder than at any given time I can give her what she has wanted since she was sixteen. I can't really concentrate anymore. All I feel is this overriding fear. I don't want to take away the last wall keeping them apart.  
  
Hell I had to watch her kiss him.  
  
I know where her heart lies.  
  
"If the winner cannot fulfill her duties as the next Miss America."  
  
The stuffy man on the screen was talking about how the second place person could fill in and suddenly my chair flew through the screen and disappeared.  
  
I was standing and I know that I had done it. I just don't remember it. The cheerleader is shelling peanuts and she watches me. She is the most calm person in the world. I don't want to look at her because I know that the moment that I do she will say all those things that we haven't been saying since we found out that I can turn my grandsire human.  
  
Stupid me, I'm a bloody bint for wanting to play a game like that.  
  
"You're wrong you know," she says as she eats another nut.  
  
I vamp out and turn at her, growling. I don't think I've ever been this angry before.  
  
She raises an eyebrow, but she's not backing down.  
  
"I've been thinking about this. We're not the runner's up in the whole heart thing."  
  
I approach her and I want to hit something. I just want to be able to feel something crumble beneath my hands again. All the power that I have is intangible and it is driving me nuts.  
  
I hate her.  
  
I hate him.  
  
All because I loved a Slayer.  
  
All this misery is because I fuckin' fell for a girl.  
  
She eats a peanut and cocks her head. She looks off into space and smiles.  
  
"We really are the lucky ones Spike," she said with this far off voice, "They are soul mates."  
  
We both make the face and the gag noises in the backs of our throats.  
  
Soul mates. Yeah we'll never be soul mates with them. She has to rub that one in. She is always all about making me feel so great about myself.  
  
"We have something with them that they don't have with each other. We have a place that they can't touch. We were friends with them. When they needed someone we were the one person that they could go to keep from falling off that damned planet. I made Angel human, he laughed and joked and added facial expressions to his repartee. Because of you Buffy was able to understand what it meant being a Slayer, she was strong and faster and learned the shades of grey. We saved them from themselves."  
  
My anger was fading, but it still sounded silly to me.  
  
"Revisionist?"  
  
She shook her head.  
  
"We were by their side when their hearts were breaking. We never pitied them or asked them to buck up. We refused to believe that things were as bad as they made them seem. You kept her alive when she was so depressed after heaven, I was by his side while he had to start over. We are what made them stronger. We are what made them get through. Hell we'll never be the ones they look on with that mushy face stuff, but we were there. We had a place in their lives that their love will never reach. We were their partners. We were their equals. We weren't in it for the grand passion. We were just us, and they had a place in their lives for us."  
  
I wanted to believe her.  
  
I really did.  
  
But I know. I told her what I thought when I went all fiery.  
  
She never loved me.  
  
Not like she loved Angel.  
  
The cheerleader looked at me and she shook her head.  
  
"Do you really want that love thing. Buffy was his weakness. Buffy was the one thing that would ruin him. You got a soul for her and I got visions for him. We were part of them. They made us what we are and we made them better."  
  
I still didn't believe her, but the rage had dulled.  
  
She put her head at a defiant angle.  
  
"Then we died and we will always be memorialized. We hold an untouchable place in their hearts. We never made them weak, being with us made them stronger."  
  
And we are higher beings. What we believe, what we will is so.  
  
We sit back and we drink bubbly fizzy drinks that taste like heaven.  
  
"I still would have like to have been with her."  
  
I know I said it, however I don't think that it came out that simply. I was a little bit maudlin at that point. It was probably a lot less manly.  
  
She was simply defiant.  
  
"The universe wouldn't allow it. The universe doesn't allow lovers to be happy. Who do you know who was happy?"  
  
I lean back. I don't know when she got so smart. Less than a year ago she had to cheat to beat me at mancala.  
  
I don't know any relationship that ended happily.  
  
"She still talks to you on patrol," my heavenly companion told me later.  
  
"He still visits your body," I told her.  
  
We're both drunker than imaginable, but hey we're heavenly beings.  
  
We sit in silence, knowing.  
  
Love forever.  
  
I will love her forever.  
  
I'm still not going to make him human any time soon.  
  
I watch her fight.  
  
She isn't ready.  
  
She isn't herself yet.  
  
I'm not ready.  
  
The cheerleader sits next to me and we watch and guide.  
  
We're the Runner-Ups, we're the best friends. We'll never be the soul mates. We are higher beings, we will always watch from afar.  
  
This is our lot.  
  
Because we loved this is where we will always be.  
  
Yeah, don't ever tell me that life sucks.  
  
My life sucked. My un-life wasn't the greatest and afterwards isn't looking to be so much fun.  
  
It doesn't matter though.  
  
Two seconds of existence were worth it.  
  
She told me that she loved me.  
  
That is worth everything. 


End file.
